TBR List Update: September

      

I'm working my way through #VirtualMountTBR. Here's my current To-Be-Read List, and here's the list of titles I have read this year.

In September 2023

Books read: 4

Books I decided NOT to finish: 11

Life Undercover: Coming of Age in the CIA:  It was the least interesting one left on the list.

In an ironic twist, American Appetite was removed from the contenders because the only copy in my library system was discovered to have had coffee spilled across it by a previous borrower or browser. 

Into the Vietnamese Kitchen has lovely coffee-table qualities, but it was enough to flip through it and take note of a few anecdotes from the author and some flavor combinations (and information about how to choose a quality fish sauce).

From the culling of food culture/history/memoir titles: 

• African American Foodways
• Getting What We Need Ourselves
• Every Nation Has Its Dish
• Food on the Page
• From Scratch: Inside the Food Network
• Southern Food and Civil Rights

Four Hundred Souls is a worthy tome, but I've tried several times now to go back to it without success. I'm going to resign myself to not having read it, and take it off the list; I at least know that it exists and can recommend it to readers who want to tackle it.

I also tried (for 3 months!) to get around to reading The Woman in the Mirror, and have accepted that I won't.

Life Undercover

Books left on the TBR List: 50

Best book of the month: The American Way of Eating

The narrative style (from an investigative reporter) drew me in and I could relate to her experiences in retail grocery, food service, and agriculture (I haven't worked in that last industry, but a couple years ago I read Chasing the Harvest: Migrant Workers in California Agriculture, which was pretty fresh in my mind).

Worst book of the month: The Mystery of Mrs. Christie

I didn't really grasp the plot-within-a-plot. This could be because I read the ebook -- would a print format have made the POV clearer from chapter to chapter? Anyway, meh.

I was hoping to catch up this month, by reading the backlog of books I physically have in my possession, but I am still behind. Next come all the horrific treats I requested specifically for spooky season... will I gorge on those sweets or finish my veggies first?

To Be (Read), or not To Be

Heading into Q4 of this challenge year, I'm being a little strategic in my approach to #VirtualMountTBR. I will definitely not read 66 titles (plus those in-progress/in my possession) in 3 months, despite a good showing so far this year. Time to winnow!

Some of the 15 foodways history and food memoir titles are a little redundant, so I thought I might choose only two or three, and hope that browsing the others satisfies my curiosity. Turns out I really liked 6 when I saw them in person: a couple that looked fun and will go quickly thanks to a third of the page count actually being illustrations or footnotes, some memoir from an undercover journalist with a flair for storytelling, and the most accessible of the nonfiction written for a lay audience with a TV remote close at hand.

My first pass resulted in a Maybe stack (to the left) and a No stack (to the right).

Further review: keep these!

I also placed holds on several delightfully horrifying novels and some short stories for the month of October, which will hopefully be read quickly. The Stephen King re-reads are something I've been looking forward to -- they won't count toward my new books read this year, but they'll help shorten the TBR list.

I've limited my NEXT year's list to 50 books (not there yet) and have an idea of a couple I'd remove if I needed space. With any that I choose to keep for another year, and perhaps even some unplanned titles, that should make a full reading itinerary for 2024.